We live in a world packed with technology, technology that we all use every single day. And some of that tach generates vast amounts of data. Whether we are using our phones, tablets or laptops we create a lot of digital data and this data needs to be stored, transferred and backed up somewhere. There are plenty of different storage options and various ways to transfer files from one device to another (portable drives, Bluetooth, email or cloud storage). While email and cloud storage may seem the easiest solution to use with your files on your various devices, what happens if your internet goes down or you need to take the files to someone without an internet connection? Or you want to keep your own backup files and not be reliant on someone else or a service provider? The answer is a portable storage device such as a flash drive like the SanDisk Ultra Fit USB flash drive.
Portable storage devices come in all shapes and sizes. We all probably have a few different ones knocking about in drawers. But sometimes we just need something small, fast, simple and secure, like a thumbnail-sized flash drive with password protection.
The SanDisk Ultra Fit USB Flash Drive is a tiny thumbnail-size drive with USB 3.2 Gen 1 performance with ultra-fast read speeds up to 400MB/s to transfer large files quickly and reliably. It is available with storage space from 16GB to 512GB and is ideal for keeping in your bag or pocket. Perfect for easily backing up or transferring files, while keeping the data secure, password protected and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 (although a USB 3.0 port is required to utilise its full speed). It can transfer a full-length movie in less than 30 seconds (based on 1.2GB file from a USB 3.0 port), writing at a speed of up to 15x times faster than USB 2.0 (depending on specification of you host device). It has plenty of storage space for all your portable data needs.
Lots of flash drives are unprotected so that anyone using it can see, copy, edit and delete your files. The SanDisk Ultra Fit can keep your data private and secure using the free downloadable PrivateAccess software that uses 128-bit AES encryption and is supported by Windows® 10+ and macOS v10.9+. The software is not needed to use the flash drive, only if you want to password protect your files in an encrypted vault on the drive.
The PrivateAccess software creates a secure area on the drive that is password protected using 128-bit AES encryption. Install the software, set up your password and then just copy and paste / drag and drop your files into the vault and they are automatically encrypted. These files cannot to viewed, opened, copied or deleted until the vault is opened with your password. Be warned, there is no password recovery option so if you forget your password and the password hint doesn’t help then you have no access to your files or that vault. I think this is an excellent feature as it ensures that no one else can get at your files without knowing your password.
You don’t need to install the PrivateAccess software to use the Ultra Fit flash drive, you can also use it as a standard unprotected drive. Or you can install the software and have some files protected in the vault whilst still having some unprotected for all to access and use.
This is a very handy storage device for all those digital data needs, especially for transporting files between the home and the office if you don’t want to rely on cloud-based storage options or just want to keep your files backed up somewhere else (it is good practice to have a physical backup and off-site storage backup of your important files and documents). It is compact, fast and secure. With the high data transfer speeds, you can copy on a full-length film in less than a minute before leaving the house or office and have something to watch on the train while travelling with your laptop or tablet (no internet connection required).
Rating: 5/5
RRP: from £6.99 to £49.99 (16GB to 512GB)
For more information visit www.sandisk.com. Available to buy from Amazon here.